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The Earth is reflecting less and less sunlight, study reveals

⁨170⁩ ⁨likes⁩

Submitted ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨cm0002@sh.itjust.works⁩ to ⁨science@mander.xyz⁩

https://phys.org/news/2025-09-earth-sunlight-reveals.html

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  • themeatbridge@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Just in case it wasn’t clear, that’s a horrifying discovery. Like the extinction of all life on earth.

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    • T00l_shed@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Hopefully enough things can adapt in time and then something can give it another go

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      • JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        FWIW, the Earth has about 500-600My left before common photosynthesis is no longer possible due to fallout from the sun heating up gradually. My understanding is that unless complex life somehow adapts, then that will be the end of it on Earth, with simpler life presumably surviving for billions more years past that mark.

        Point is– if complex life can survive the coming collapse, then it evidently does have a healthy window to work with. I believe that might be helped out by the ‘churning of the continents,’ in which landmass gets regularly cycled back in to the magma layer over the course of millions of years, with new areas appearing on the other edges, so to speak.

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    • Yawweee877h444@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      But billionaires need bigger yachts. And more mansions. What’re we to do? Can’t sacrifice the billionaires ultra-mega-yachts.

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      • fartographer@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Dark colored yachts

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    • protist@mander.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      That’s actually not clear at all. How did you draw this conclusion from what’s written here? It cites decreased pollution across the northern hemisphere as one of the drivers of this, for example, and how is that horrifying?

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      • Jtotheb@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Also due to reduced water vapor and ice cover lol. It’s a conclusion that can be drawn without much reliance on the article, which focuses a lot on specific climate model improvements and not the obvious concern: given our desire for the earth to reflect more of the sun’s rays and cool off, reflecting fewer and warming up is not good

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      • themeatbridge@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Because absorbed light is excess energy.

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      • leftzero@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        how is that horrifying?

        Daisyworld.

        Less albedo -> more heat -> ice caps melting -> less albedo and more greenhouse gases -> much more heat, and so on.

        It’s a vicious cycle, and there doesn’t seem to be any viable solution. We could put shades between us and the sun, but that’d probably reduce light too much and kill most plants, leading to even more carbon being released.

        We’re fucked, and probably way beyond any chance of unfucking ourselves. We let those pass by years ago.

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  • BeefandSquints@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I sure hope they figure his out for all of the people dumb enough to still be having children.

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    • salacious_coaster@infosec.pub ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      They already did, and current policy is to ignore it

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      • BeefandSquints@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Well, they are certainly profiting from the despair.

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  • archonet@lemy.lol ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    at this point I’m fully expecting the only thing that keeps us from extincting ourselves with global warming is almost extincting ourselves with nuclear winter.

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    • cm0002@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      See we got this! We’re just going to get rid of mice climate change with a snake nuclear winter!

      They’ll just cancel each other out perfectly 😌

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      • archonet@lemy.lol ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        I don’t wish for this to happen, mind you, but we are clearly living in the dumbest possible timeline, and so it is the only solution that makes sense

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      • baldingpudenda@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        With how bad its going a summer without winter might give us another 10 years.

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    • shalafi@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      We’re not going extinct. FFS, we survived at least one ice age. At another point, scientists studying our DNA think we were down to as a few as a thousand individuals.

      Humans are the AR-15s of the animal kingdom. Not the best at any one thing*, excellent at multipurpose roles. Like insects, we survive in any climate outside Antarctica. We can walk endlessly. I’m 54, not in great shape, pretty sure I could spend my entire waking day walking, stopping only to eat.

      We’re social animals who stick together when the going gets tough. We love fucking and we can make babies every month of the year, no waiting to go in heat.

      No animal comes close to our dexterity and advanced tool use. Stone Age man was more adept at tool use than every other animal combined. We’re stupid reliable, smart and tough as well.

      * OK, we can throw and catch like nothing else on Earth.

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      • archonet@lemy.lol ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        global warming at this rate absolutely does have the potential to extinct us, no matter how cool we think we are. Tenacity and versatility will only carry you so far when you fuck up nature so badly that all the things you’d eat for food are themselves extinct or almost extinct. At the point we were down to a few thousand individuals, I should imagine that the climate not being super hyper mega fucked helped immensely in ensuring those people had adequate food – you aren’t going to be running down a deer (or a rabbit, or any other wild game) in the post-climate-apocalypse world if all the deer are dead because the food chain supporting the deer population collapsed. You aren’t going to be farming because extreme weather variations will make it impossible, you might be in for a drought or a monsoon and you’ll certainly not have accurate weather forecasting to go off of by that point. Foraging? I sure hope none of the various food chains and water cycles supporting the growth of forage-able food has collapsed either (they probably will). Fishing? Ocean acidity, microplastics, and global warming are all fighting to be the thing that kills that off, take your pick.

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  • PrivateNoob@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Emo Earth letsgoooo!

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    • TacoButtPlug@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I hate you (but I also love you)

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  • zod000@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    This must be what people have meant when they say we’re headed for the Dark Ages.

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    • altphoto@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I assume its the opposite. It’s absorbing light as heat vs reflecting and cooling down.

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      • zod000@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Yes, it is, I was just making a bad joke. I am actually surprised that didn’t mention that the decrease in some air pollution was also a factor. See: science.org/…/clearer-skies-may-be-accelerating-g…

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  • jeena@piefed.jeena.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    This is how it started on Venus too!

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  • captainlezbian@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Yeah, loss of snow reduces albedo, this increases temperature reducing snow. It’s a known factor in how stable climate positions are stable.

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  • altphoto@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Here’s the ad I obtained from that link…thinking what I’m thinking? Yes. Yes I am!

    Image

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